Big Money: What Top-Paid CIOs Earn

By Kim S. Nash |
Posted 08-01-2006

There's no sure formula for measuring the worth of a chief information officer. But we can gawk at what some superstars get paid.

Baseline's 2006 CIO compensation ranking shows that most of the 46 technology executives on the list got fatter wallets last year. Twenty-seven of them saw their total compensation increase in 2005 compared with 2004.

"The market's up and things are more competitive than they were last year," says Paul Groce, a partner at executive recruiting firm Christian & Timbers. "For chief executives and boards to attract world-class CIOs, they need to understand good CIOs are not inexpensive and they're hard to find," adds Groce, who specializes in placing senior technology leaders.

There are probably CIOs out there who make more than the men and women on the 2006 list, but they don't earn enough to be included in their companies' annual corporate proxy statement. The Securities and Exchange Commission requires public companies to report the compensation of their five highest-paid officers. For the past five years, Baseline has studied the proxies of the 1,000 largest U.S. firms to assemble the list of elite CIOs.